Scaling User Engagement with Security Awareness

How AmerisourceBergen Successfully Used The Living Security Platform

The Client

AmerisourceBergen is united in its responsibility to create healthier futures. They provide the pharmaceutical products and business solutions that improve access to care. They operate the backbone of the healthcare supply chain, drive the future of local care delivery and guide medical innovations to market.

AmerisourceBergen was looking for a gamified training solution that they could scale and deliver simultaneously across their organization. When the Living Security Platfrom was launched in fall 2018, they knew they had found the perfect solution. “I knew about Living Security and I was looking for something that we could take enterprise-wide that had elements of gamification while teaching associates the best practices in information security,” said Deb Walter, Manager of Information Security Training and Awareness at AmerisourceBergen. “When Living Security came out with a product that was web-based and gamified and everything else I was looking for, it was a no-brainer.” 

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“Living Security is on the cutting edge of where we need to get to in terms of how we are training our associates—gamification and small tidbits of information at a pace that works for them.”

The Solution

The Living Security Platform counters the culture of checkbox compliance security awareness training that simply tells users what behaviors to discontinue. Replacing that approach with behavioral science-backed gamification and immersive learning, the Living Security Platform increases training participation and retention which ultimately results in behavior change.

“A solution that delivers gamification and competition is a huge factor because competition is challenge and that challenge drives participation and retention,” said Walter. “With the Living Security Platform, when employees started to solve the puzzles and overcome the challenge, it built their self-confidence and the idea that I can do this, not just in this platform but in real life, which reinforces the learning and confidence to know what to do in real-life situations.”

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The training is delivered through puzzles, games and video storylines, helping the user consume the information at a pace and through a medium that increases their understanding and retention. “Living Security is on the cutting edge of where we need to get to in terms of how we are training our associates—gamification and small tidbits of information at a pace that works for them,” said Walter. “When you have these pieces broken into small portions, it’s easier to get people to engage, and the retention is a lot longer than normal.”

Beyond the product, AmerisourceBergen was looking for a partner that would work alongside them, incorporating their needs and feedback into what was being delivered. “Living Security is helping me up my game—I can’t do this alone,” said Walter. “The level of engagement that Living Security provided for our deployment was amazing.”

The Experience

AmerisourceBergen chose the Living Security Platform training series, Simon Says, with added Security Trivia, Phishing Skills, Am I Secure and Threat Insight training modules. AmerisourceBergen wanted something that delivered high participation and retention through a gamified and competition-driven platform and provided metrics and insight on the back end. “The Living Security Platform hit on all of the elements I would want in a product. It involved gamification while learning and had features on the back end that would help us develop our program,” said Walter. “It was easy to send out, users could solve the puzzles and complete the training and at the same time we were getting data on the back end.”

In the past, AmerisourceBergen had approached training through an in-person Information Security Fair, which had an adequate participation rate but it came at a large expense. With the Living Security Platform, they were able to add a digital deployment offering. They found that the added gamification and phishing training resulted in increased participation and a strengthened security awareness training program.

“Training people in unconventional ways increases their attention during the training,” said Walter, “and the more you keep reinforcing best practices, the more you will move the needle. The platform delivers that repetition in an engaging way.”

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Next Steps

Next, AmerisourceBergen plans on deploying a dual-approach training program in fall of 2019, utilizing both the licensed LS Security Escape Room and Living Security Platform as part of their repetition and gamification philosophy. The LS Cyber Escape digital training platform teaches security concepts through immersive storylines. The targeted training modules use behavioral science and puzzles to engage users on specific, targeted security concepts, gauge an organization’s security culture and provide metrics to build a sustained security culture, determine next steps and train for the next threat, not the last.

The LS Escape Room will be part of their global physical Information Security Awareness Fair and a launching event for the upcoming Living Security Platform training series, True Eye. “The physical Escape Room will allow me to engage users in person and is a conduit to reinforcing best practices,” said Walter. “We can use it as a great launching event, calling out the True Eye training series when they leave. I think it will be a home run.”

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ABOUT LIVING SECURITY

Living Security is a cybersecurity training company, working to reduce cyber risk through impactful, human-focused training.

Living Security’s focal point is decreasing human error–the greatest cybersecurity risk enterprises face–through immersive and intelligence-driven training solutions. Their science-based approach drives user engagement and reinforces positive security behaviors, integrates threat intelligence to train on the most relevant user-facing threats and delivers metrics that enable companies to measure the effectiveness of the program.

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